Fairy Tales
by sissyHIYAH
Summary: Quistis and Irvine talk about Seifer. Yep, I finally broke down and decided to do a 'Seifer gets executed' fic. I hope I didn't make it too icky sweet though. That wasn't the intention.


Irvine grinned once he finally reached the end of the footprints in the snow. Quistis was sitting on a log, chin in her hands and both elbows on her knees.

"Here."

She hadn't realized how cold she was until the styrofoam cup of hot tea was pressed into her hands. "My savior."

He thought he had brushed all of the snow off the log, but once he sat down and his ass was saturated with cold water, he realized that he missed more than he cleaned. Great. "It's cold out. Why're ya sittin' way out here?"

She shrugged. "Because it's cold."

"That's a mighty weird way of sayin' ya want to be alone for a while."

"Maybe so." Finally looking at him instead of the darkness of the forest, she asked, "Why are _you_ out here?"

"Because it's cold...and because you didn't wear a jacket. Thought I might get lucky and you'd have a two gun salute ready for me."

Sighing, she turned away from his bright smile and stupid jokes. She wasn't in the mood for his games. "Irvine, you're lucky that I consider you a friend. I would have killed you for that had you been anyone else."

"Yeah, but what a way to go, strangled by a blonde with a whip..."

"You're a pig."

"But I'm your favorite pig, ain't I?"

Quistis smiled. "Yes, I suppose you are."

He sipped his tea and gave her time to drink some of hers. She had been out in the cold for far too long, so he hoped the tea would warm her a bit. "Nice night, ain't it? The stars are right purty this time of year."

"Are they?" Quistis looked at the sky again. She hadn't noticed the stars that night. The velvet silence of the sky had drawn her to the forest clearing, black and deep and so very heavy. "I guess they are."

Hmm. So star talk wasn't going to put her in a good mood. It always worked wonders for Selphie. He wished that the moon was visible. It was easy to get poetic when the sky was lit by a mystical crescent or a full glowing orb. The new moon just wasn't as...well, it wasn't anything. He couldn't even see the dark spot where the moon should have been. "Ya ever wondered where the moon goes when it ain't in the sky?"

"It's all planetary rotation. Sunlight reflects on the satellite until it's blocked by our little planet."

"That ain't real romantic, Quisty."

She laughed. "What would you like for me to say? Would you rather I lie to you?"

"Naw, I don't reckon I want ya to lie to me, but ya ain't gotta be so scientific."

"Trust me, I can get a _lot _more technical than that."

"Well hell, I know what it is, but that don't mean that I _want_ to know what it is. Don't ya ever want to hear a fairy tale?"

She slurped her tea and wiped her lips on the back of her hand. "Irvine, have you ever heard a _real _fairy tale?"

"Bunches of 'em. Let's see...ya got the princess that slept for a hundred years, 'til her prince gave her a kiss and woke her up..."

"Hmm. Yes, that one is very popular, isn't it?"

Shit. She was getting worse. "Yep, one of my favorites. Then ya got the princess that could spin straw into gold..."

Quistis chuckled. "Two lies in one. Alchemy in a fairy tale..."

The noise from the party grew louder. Irvine looked behind him, through the trees to the distant lights of the earth-bound Garden. He hadn't realized how far she had walked to get away from that crowd. "I thought you loved fairy tales. You used to read 'em to us all the time."

"I don't read them anymore."

"Why the hell not?"

"They're nothing but lies."

"Well yeah, of course they are!" He leaned closer and tried to grab her hand, but she jerked away and stood from her seat. "I know you're upset right now, but that ain't no reason to just..."

"No, you misunderstand. The pretty stories that I used to tell all of you are lies of the worst sort. I read a lot of Edea's..."

"Matron." It disturbed him to hear Quistis call her Edea instead of Matron. She was the only one that did it, the only one that never looked at her the same anymore. She had been forgiven, of course, but there was still something that kept them apart.

"I read a lot of _Edea's _books when we were children, but I only told a few of the stories I actually read."

"You had a lot of stories, Quisty. That was the only way we could get to sleep some nights, when you'd tell us those stories about adventures and brave knights and evil queens..."

She sipped her tea and glanced back to Garden. "Bad things happened to the children in those stories, Irvine. Very bad things. I hid those books from all of you because I didn't want any of you to _know _what happened to those children. Do you remember the one I told about the brother and sister that left a trail of breadcrumbs?"

"Yeah, they pushed the witch into the oven after she tried to eat 'em. Got what she deserved, if ya ask me."

"Well, I never told you that the children were running from their mother, who planned on eating them herself."

"Say what?"

"The family was starving, so the mother planned to cook the youngest children so the others could survive. They ran, had their adventure with the witch, then dragged her roasted corpse back home so their family could have food for the winter."

"Why didn't they just take their family back to the gingerbread house?"

"Why? Because it wasn't gingerbread at all. It was just mud and the bones of the witch's conquests, all an illusion."

"Goddamn."

Oh, the noise was getting louder and she thought that she had gone far enough to escape it. She should have never stopped at that clearing, but she was so tired. "And the gambling prince? The one that brought the sun because he could dance longer than the fairy queen?"

"Do I even want to know?"

"No, but I'm telling you anyway. The bet was that if the prince could dance longer than the fairy queen, she would end her eternal winter and allow spring to return to his kingdom. I told all of you that he danced all night until the sun finally rose."

"Yeah, then he left the fairy kingdom and went home, where they threw a big party. I liked that one too."

"Yes, but what I didn't tell you was that time is different in fairy-land. Dancing all night sounds fun, but one night in _her _realm is a decade in ours. He danced until his legs were worn down to nubs. The fairy queen didn't like that his blood was staining the blue ice of her ballroom floor, so she sent him home. When his body was found, they had a great funeral feast to celebrate the return of their missing prince."

Chilled more from the story than from his icy seat, Irvine stood and tossed his tea into the trees. Shoving his hands in his pockets, he muttered, "Hell Quisty, why are ya tellin' me all this shit?"

"Because you brought me this tea."

No, no, no. She was doing it again. "I'd have brought something a hell of a lot stronger than tea if I'd have known that you'd tell me stories like _this!"_

"Do they bother you?"

"Hell yes they bother me! You're just sittin' there calm as ya always are, tellin' me about cannibals and witches and..."

"Do you see why I lied to all of you when we were children?"

"Shit. Yeah, I see what you're sayin', but..."

"I thought I could protect all of you, but I lied to myself. We all went our separate ways, then I forgot those stories that I told."

"Well, I never forgot them. You made me believe in a prettier world. The good guy kicks evil's ass and always gets the girl."

"I'm glad you remembered them, Irvine. I'm so glad because the only stories I could remember were the horrible ones that I never told to anyone except myself. I never told them until I started teaching here, then I told them _all_."

"What are ya talkin' about?"

"I became one of those witches, Irvine. A cackling hag with a cauldron and a broom. I'm so glad you were never in one of my classes. I'm so fucking glad that I never taught you what I taught the others..."

Oh, the party was in full swing and the forest was alive with the sound. Irvine saw her posture stiffen when she looked back to the glow in the trees. "Quisty, it ain't your fault that he..."

"I should have told you the real stories. Maybe then he might have wanted to be something else. I should have--should have told all of you what really happened. Maybe then he wouldn't be..."

"It was in him to do it anyway. It ain't your fault that he wanted to be a knight. Even if you had read a cookbook to us, he would have still ended up where he is now."

Fireworks exploded in the skies above the Trabian wilderness, celebrating the official declaration of the traitor's death. "He was a fine dancer, wasn't he? He should have been a prince instead of a knight."

"Don't say that."

"They're having a great party in there. Why don't you go back so you can enjoy it?"

"Why the hell do ya think I'm out here with you, freezing my balls off?!"

"Because it's cold. You said so yourself."

"Well, I lied."

"So did I."

"Quisty?"

"What is it?"

He kicked at a frozen branch. Ice fell from the bark in thin curves and left incision thin scars on the snow. "Will ya tell me another story? And don't sugarcoat this one. I want the real version, warts, witches, and everything else."

"Another story? Well, let me think..."

Quistis sipped her tea and stared at the sky. The cold wind brought the scent of burnt sulfur to her nose. Faint plumes of smoke from the fireworks were barely visible against the endless black overhead.

Humph. Stories and fairy tales and pretty, pretty lies.

"Once upon a time, there was a handsome boy with a wooden sword who dreamt of being a brave knight. In the same village, there lived a foolish girl who netted the glittering fish from the river and sold them from a basket. Now this boy often bought fish from this girl, not because he was hungry, but because she could tell him of worlds beyond his humble village. He visited her daily, for she was one of the river people and the river people knew of things that the water would whisper only to them. She looked forward to his visits and saved the finest fish and the finest tales for him..."

"Quisty?" Faster and faster, she was weaving a tale that he knew would end in tragedy. Why had he even asked? He knew this tale just as well as she did.

"The river girl didn't understand why he wanted to hear her tales, but she told them anyway, because she liked to see his eyes when he dreamt of those lands she had seen..."

"Quisty. Stop."

"She wanted to tell him that all lands were the same to the river, who cut through them all and brought those pretty tales to her people, but..."

"Quistis!"

"_WHAT?! _You wanted a story, didn't you?"

"You're not tellin' this story to me. You're tellin' it to yourself."

Why wasn't she crying? Any other girl would have been on her knees, weeping in the snow, but not her. Why wouldn't she do what he wanted her to do? Irvine was a professional at drying tears, but he had no idea what to do when the tears weren't falling. "Is it so bad that I want my own story? Where the girl isn't a princess and the boy doesn't become a knight?"

"No, but that ain't how your story goes..."

Quistis poured her tea onto the snow and threw the cup into the darkness. "I know how my story goes, Irvine. Is it so wrong that I want to lie to myself one more time?"

"For anyone else, I'd say it ain't a problem, but we're talkin' about you, so yeah. It is wrong."

She opened her mouth to scream, to hurl insults and threats, but she just as quickly closed it again. It would do no good to scream at him. He only wanted to help.

"It's cold as hell out here. Ya about ready to head back?"

"No. I don't want to go back there, at least not while they're still laughing about his execution."

"Well, I wasn't exactly talkin' about goin' back to Garden. We'll have to swing by to pack, of course, but Selphie and me are plannin' a lil' trip."

"A trip to where?"

"Don't know just yet. Just back to somewhere."

The noise from the party was dying down now that Seifer Almasy was officially dead. "Back to somewhere? There are a lot of somewheres in the world."

"Yeah, but I reckon we'll find just about all of 'em as long as we let Selphie drive. She'll get us there mighty quick."

Quistis smiled and took Irvine's offered hand. Going somewhere sounded like a very good idea, though she hoped she could persuade Selphie to let her drive so they could get to that somewhere with all limbs still attached to their bodies.

"That's my girl! Come on, Quisty!"

Irvine threw his arm over Quistis' shoulder and began tramping a path back towards the lights of Garden. They walked in silence for a few minutes, listening to their boots crunch through ice and snow.

Looking once more at the sky, Quistis gave Irvine a friendly bump with her elbow.

"Thanks."

"Ow! What'd I do?"

"Thanks for making me see that it was my stories that had such an effect on him."

"Now I just told ya that it ain't your fault that he..."

"No, it is my fault, but I'm much happier about it now that I see what that means."

Irvine cocked his head to the side and waited.

"I tried to protect all of you from the truly horrible stories, but he knew that I was hiding something. I guess he decided to seek out the parts of the stories that I hid, the witches and evil queens, the trolls and the bad mothers."

"Yeah, but..." Irvine didn't understand why she was laughing. Maybe Seifer's execution had hit her much harder than he first thought when he followed her into the frozen forest.

"Don't you see?"

Rubbing the back of his head, Irvine toyed with his ponytail and wished that Selphie was standing with him.

"No, I don't reckon I do."

Kissing his cheek, Quistis pointed overhead and said, "Look! You were talking about the beauty of the stars earlier, but they wouldn't shine at all if the sky behind them wasn't so dark. They're celebrating his death right now, but they don't know that he's getting ready to live forever. Every time we stop at a new 'Somewhere', I can tell everyone the tale of a brave knight who made the stars glow brighter..."

Irvine tripped over his feet as Quistis dragged him inside. Impulsive wild streaks he could handle, as long as they were from himself or Selphie, but from Quistis? Miss Stoicism herself? What the hell? "He'd kick your ass for that, Quisty."

She stopped. Would he? Would Seifer be angry with her for telling his story? Did it really matter now? She shook her head. She would think about it later, when she was away from the place that twisted her tales into something else. She had to leave, had to find somewhere else before she lost her mind. "No. Not for this. If I turn him into the brave knight that saves the princess from the dragon, then yeah, he'd kill me, but for telling the world his story?"

"Are you sure?"

"No, I'm not sure, but I think he'd like it. As long as I don't tell any more fantasies or fairy tales, I think he'd be pleased."

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Note: Bored as hell and I've always liked Irvine, so I thought it would be fun to have a conversation between him and Q. Plus, I've not tried one of the cliche 'Seifer is executed' fics before, so I combined them. So here's a quickie fic that I typed between patients to try to take up some time. I wanted to work on the next chapter for _Failures_, but it's busy enough to keep my mind off the big multi-chapter fics, but slow enough so that I'm bored too, so I did this instead. Oh well, maybe I can work on it when I get home.


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